Spider-Man, Barbie being used to sell additive-laden food to kids

It was found that chemicals identified as causing hyperactive behaviour in healthy children were present in 95 per cent of top-selling cakes and hundreds of sweets, fizzy drinks and processed foods.

The findings emerged when campaigners announced a soon-to-be launched “name and shame” website to help parents identify foods their children should avoid.

The site has been created by the Food Commission in support of the Daily Mail’s Ban the Additives campaign.

Last month, a Southampton University study warned artificial colours had a “significant adverse effect” on children’s well-being.

One it’s authors, Professor Jim Stevenson, warned parents they were risking their children’s psychological and physical health by giving them junk food packed with additives.

Despite this, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has declined to ban the chemicals, allowing manufacturers to continue using them.

The Action on Additives website, which is being set up by Lizzie Vann, founder of Organix, which sells organic baby food, lists a range of additives parents should avoid, including tartrazine (E102), ponceau-4R (E124) and sunset yellow (E110).

It has revealed that Tesco’s ‘Doctor Who’ Tardis cake contains three of the suspect colours, while other cakes featuring children’s characters, such as ‘Dora The Explorer,’ ‘My Little Pony,’ ‘Barbie’ and ‘The Simpsons,’ also use numerous additives.

“The website gives parents the chance to expose companies which use these questionable additives. The website already lists more than 100 products, most of which are brightly coloured in order to attract children,” the Daily Mail quoted, a spokesman from the website, as saying.

“With the help of the Daily Mail’s readers we hope to expose every product in the UK which continues to use these unwanted and unnecessary additives,” the spokesman added.

David Brooks, of Finsbury Foods, whose firm Lightbody makes the ‘Doctor Who’ cakes, said: “The most important thing for consumers when you are talking about a birthday cake is that it looks fantastic.

“Sometimes, you have to use artificial colours to give the appearance people want as the centrepiece of the celebration,” he added.

The FSA has agreed to place a link to the website on its own additive information pages. (ANI)